Police have arrested a man in the murder of a Massachusetts woman who has been missing for more than three decades.
Michelle Miller, then 29, was last seen alive in 1992 in Central Square in Cambridge, reported WCVB Channel 5. Her partially nude body was later found in an abandoned building in that area.
After the case grew cold, authorities now believe that Miller was the victim of a murder-for-hire plot orchestrated by the father of her children in an effort to settle a potential custody dispute.
Edward Watson, 65, of Mattapan, was arrested and charged in the case, according to CBS News. Watson was an associate of Miller's domestic partner, Daniel Innes.
Police believe Innes initiated the crime after Miller considered getting a restraining order against him. Police did not originally know about Miller's plan to attain a restraining order.
The fact was unearthed by cold case investigators who found it in archived records from the Department of Social Services. They learned that she disappeared the day after she saw the social worker and shared her plans to seek a restraining order against Innis.
Innes died in 2012 after having been sentenced for manslaughter in 1994 in an unrelated case, according to CBS News.
"Michelle Miller had served her country as a U.S. Army soldier, and she was a mother of two beautiful children, whom she adored," the WCVB 5 quoted District Attorney Marian Ryan. "By 1992, she had fallen on hard times.
"She was abused by a jealous and violent partner, who had threatened to take away custody of her children. On July 28, 1992, the day after she told her social worker of her intention to obtain a restraining order against that abusive partner, she disappeared."
